Highlights From The New CBA

The effects of Major League Baseball's new collective bargaining agreement can't be described within one post, even one as long as this. It will take a while for teams and players to adjust to the game's new conditions, but here's an early look at ten highlights from the CBA (in no particular order):

Playoffs may expand in 2012 – If Commissioner Bud Selig gets his wish and MLB playoffs expand next year, more teams than ever will have a realistic shot at contention.

Good news for middle-tier free agents – Teams will only offer arbitration if they're prepared to pay a one-year salary that matches or exceeds the average salary of the 125 highest-paid players from the previous season (likely more than $12MM). Middle-tier free agents won't see offers of arbitration and will hit the market uninhibited as a result.

Draft limits may curb rebuilding efforts – Teams will face draft spending ceilings in the $4.5-11.5MM range. Clubs like the Pirates, Rays, Indians, Nationals, Blue Jays and Mets had been spending aggressively on the draft, but will have to slow down or face steep fines and lose future selections.

Earlier signing deadline – The draft signing deadline will now be in mid-July, which means a) teams can get a longer look at players who sign late b) teams can trade players from the previous year's draft before the July 31st trade deadline and c) college coaches will be able to set their fall rosters with more time to spare.

The trade market for elite free agents shifts - "Only players who have been with their clubs for the entire season will be subject to compensation," according to the CBA. In other words, teams won't be compensated for losing players acquired in midseason trades.

Some draft picks can be traded – If a team wins a pick in the competitive balance lottery, it can assign the selection to another club under some circumstances.

International spending restrictions – The restrictions on international spending appear to make it harder for teams to build a competitive advantage internationally.

More super twos – More players than ever will be arbitration eligible before obtaining three years of MLB service. This won't stop the annual service time manipulations for top prospects, but it might delay them until later in the summer. The cutoff will now be earlier than ever, which means teams may wait until the end of June before calling top prospects up.

Earlier deadlines speed offseason up – Going forward, teams have to decide whether to offer arbitration to free agents soon after the World Series, instead of in late November. The sides also moved the tender deadline for arbitration eligible players up to December 2.

Expanded rosters for doubleheaders - Though the sides didn't announce any reductions for September roster sizes, they did agree on one change. Teams will be allowed to expand their rosters to include 26 players for some doubleheaders.

The Yankees for sure and probably the Phillies are not teams that are known to spend top 5 money in the draft. Please speak of what you know. The only team that this kills is a team with an early round pick because that pick will consume large portions of the budget and limit what they can spend in rounds 2-the end.

What the morons should have done was simply put a hard cap on what the players can demand for 1st rnd picks. Have a hard slot where the #1 can’t get more than $10 mil, the #2 $8 mil, etc, etc , etc. It’s a stupid policy.

You are correct. However the Yanks have not spent wildly on the draft. The Pirates, Royals and others have, laying out $1 mil+ bonuses in the 3rd, 4th and later rounds.

This says it best (copied from bleachernation)…

The greatest downfall of this new rule is a very reasonable fear that top young athletes, who need their wheels greased to choose professional baseball over another sport, will no longer have that grease. Kevin Goldstein throws out the example of Bubba Starling, who would be playing football at Nebraska if he hadn’t received a largely overslot offer from the Kansas City Royals. That hurts all of baseball – we want the best athletes playing baseball, not other sports.The second greatest downfall is the reduced ability of teams to restock their farm system quickly via the draft, if they are willing to spend to do so. This is not a large/small market issue, mind you – some of the biggest spenders in recent years are small market clubs.

Just some FYI. If you put a hard cap on the draft and you’ve got a phenom like Bryce Harper, what’s to stop him from playing Indepent Ball for a year and then signing for whatever he wants w/ whomever he wants…nothing Hard cap is stupid.

I can’t help but wonder if the Nats and other teams won’t simply treat the fines as a cost of doing business. Even with steep fines, the draft is still a much better investment, talent-wise, than signing most free agents.

Say the max is $8 million but getting the guys you want will cost $14 million. Even if MLB slaps you with a $4.5 million (75% of the amount over the max) fine, it may be worth it. Even a forfeited draft choice might be worth it. After all, it’s not as though most of them pan out.

Only for the next year, and I think a good scouting staff will know what drafts will be full of talent and which ones will not be such a great draft. It might be worth losing a first round draft pick in a year where there’s great talent in the draft and there’s not as much talent in the following year.

I don’t like it much either, MLB now controls the draft and negotiations between draftees and teams, not the market. How NFL of them. Artificially suppressing draft money wont stop teams with bigger payrolls and potentially could cause major problems with small market teams if they cannot rebuild through the draft. Has this type of draft system stopped the Lakers, Celtics or Bulls from winning with over the cap payrolls and overspending on top young talent? Nope. Players will still flock to Elite teams in large markets and punishing teams for spending money wont stop the Yankees, Phillies, Angels and Red Sox signing players who they think can help win WS titles.

It seems like Selig is banking on an NFL style system where the supreme overlords in the league offices control almost everything v. the Wild West/Capitalism style used since FA became a norm. Lets hope it works out, but I have my doubts.

Players will still flock to Elite teams in large markets and punishing teams for spending money wont stop the Yankees, Phillies, Angels and Red Sox signing players who they think can help win WS titles.
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Please show me 1 player who “flocked” to a bigger market team? They are not free agents. Look who signed some of the biggest prospects of the last decade…Staras, Harper, Price, Longo, etc. NOT BIG MARKET TEAMS.

Big market teams take risks on hard to sign players and players with huge upsides but have injury risks. Please stop the whining about non-existing scenarios. Please show me what major prospects the Yanks stole from the “lil itty bitty” small market teams because they sure haven’t amounted to much.

Cole didn’t sign and Brackman fell to us because we knew he was going to have TJ surgery and miss 1 1/2 years. Move on…

The reason those players didn’t ‘flock to bigger market teams is that they couldn’t. The Rays/Nationals/Royals/Pirates had the worst records in the league so they had the first choices in the draft. There was no way Harper/Strasburg/Price could’ve signed with the Yankees/Red Sox because they didn’t have a draft choice till like the 20-25th picks or so. That’s not the problem for small market teams. The problem is in the future when all these players hit free agency. Then they can sign with whoever they want, which is usually the teams with the most to spend (and who coincidently also happen to make the playoffs the most), aka Yankees/Red Sox. The draft has nothing to do with that. It kind of sucks that MLB wont have a salary cap or at least put a cap on how much each draft pick slot can sign for. Now were going to have teams like KC/Pittsburgh losing draft picks becuase they will go over the spending limit, and since the draft was the only way for them to realistically improve their team, they will have no chance to compete. Unless all 30 teams in MLB decide to go over the draft spending limit. I really hope Bud Selig dies a slow and painfull death. First Interleague Play, then All-Star game deciding home field advantage in the World Series, and now creating 2 15-teams leagues (whiche really f*#ks up the schedule), and now putting a cap on draft spending instead of on payroll where it should be?!!! If I ever see Selig in person I’m gonna spit on him just like I hope to do on George Steinbrenner’s grave. Long live Detroit/Tampa/Small market teams!!!

As a Mets fan i love it.You think it is fair your teams gives a player drafted in the 2nd round top 10 bonus money.Thank your team and teams like the Pirates and Red Sox for going to far with the spending.This is great for baseball

As a Mets fan, you’re confused. This takes away any edge we had as a large market team with an ability to spend on the draft. This brings everyone else in the league within competitive balance in terms of draft spending. The 99% win out in this case. Mets’ money doesn’t mean any more than small market money.

I wanted Barnes as well so i feel the pain.We still were middle of the pack in spending in the draft but believe me these new rules will show you who drafts the best and who spends wisely.We do have some nice arms in the minors so the future could be bright for our Mets

they failed with the draft besides eliminating major league contracts.
They need to bring all the foreign players into the amateur player draft, eliminate the word amateur, and increase the age limit of 18 on signing latin players. If MLB really aspires to be a worldwide franchise, then the foreign free agent/mercenary signings have got to go.

If MLB and the union would really come together, they’d see it was smart for the mlb to have all the teams collectively pay into foreign youth baseball academies. Sure, some of the huge bonuses would go down by eliminating bidding wars on the extreme talents, but the amount of talent (# of MLB Player’s Association clients) would go up.

they should just change up the active roster to 30 men. A lot of arcane rules could be axed, if teams can just keep their fringe relievers/utility infielders on the roster (they are going to get their mlb salary anyways once they get that mlb svc time so it’s not a money issue). The mlb transaction rulebook is even more complicated than the u.s. tax code, and unfortunately they keep making it more complicated.

Basically everything on here is bad. I never complain about Selig, but all this is just terrible. Get ready for some boring off seasons and trade deadlines. The ability to creatively compete has basically been taken away now.

1. Playoffs exapnd: Don’t really care about this.
2. Compensation for middle tier players has been a huge help to lower market teams.
3. Draft limits will make it near impossible for teams like the Rays, A’s, and other small market teams. This only benefits big market teams.
4. Not that big of a deal.
5. Compensation for trades plays a critical role in how trades have panned out mid-season over the years. Makes one less interesting thing to enjoy and actually makes no sense to eliminate it. How does this benefit the league?
6. Fine with this.
7. Maybe the biggest crime. Limiting the amount teams can spend on international signings is just ridiculous. This is just a way to force lesser contracts on non-american born players. International signings have vastly improved the game and helped shape the league we now see. There should be 0 limit on this.
8. So small market teams will have there players for a year less? How in the world is this good?
9. Makes no difference.
10. Whatever.
This puts all small market teams at a huge disadvantage. If they are going to make these types of restrictions, then they need to just get rid of the inequalities in baseball payroll wise. You can’t have it both ways. Either there is a free market aspect in baseball that is unlike most other sports, or every team has an equal amount of assets at their disposal and there is no inequality.

Again you are so off with number 3.It is the best think MLB has done in a long time.What it will do is show which teams are good at scouting and which teams are not.The days of teams like the Nats drafting a no brainer player who fell to them because of signablity issues are over.Now lets see the teams use more of their brain instead of their wallet

Who cares what teams are “good” at scouting and who are not! What does that have to do with maintaining a competitive balance? Are you saying the Yankees or Red Sox were at an unfair disadvantage because they couldn’t afford to reach the amount of money that Nationals would pay? Your whole statement makes almost no sense. Big market teams would lose players in later rounds because they were unwilling to pay the amount that small market teams were? And this is a problem? This has been a godsend to small market teams. There is nothing stopping the yankees/ cubs/ mets etc. from shelling out the extra money, surely they have it. They don’t do it because they prefer to spend money on major league talent rather than risk it on high school kids.
I think you are missing the bigger picture here. You’re focusing on something that really makes no difference and missing out on something that is very significant. This will be a huge problem for teams that are forced to rely on the amateur draft. I couldn’t care less if the mets have “good” scouts. Why would anyone care about this?????!!!

So basically you are so the small market teams just suck at scouting.Please name me what a sport a 2nd round pick gets top 10 pick money.Small market teams will just have to rely on good scouting.The old system was better for the big market teams like the sox and yanks and certain small market teams took advantage of it as well.The big thing you seem to forget is that the big market teams are giving these small market teams the money to spnd big on the draft.I think in time you will love the changes

So what you are saying is that the small market teams will have to rely on good scouting. They can have the best scouts in the world, but if they can’t sign the players then what’s the point? Okay, how does this make baseball better? Again, the bigger market teams can overpay as well! Nothing stopped them from drafting guys in the second round for above slot money. The only people this hurts are teams that do it and rely on the draft to restock their systems. Now they will have a limited amount of money to spend on players and they will be worse because of it. This just ensures that the richest teams will continue to pay for premium mlb talent and the poorer teams will be unable to compete. The Rays cannot afford to pay for pro talent and not rely on the draft. They just can’t do it. They just don’t have the revenue.
It doesn’t matter if it does not happen in other sports. Baseball can’t be compared to football because football has much more revenue sharing. I’ll agree with these changes when teams like the Rays have the funds available to have a 100 million dollar payroll. I also never said I think they suck at scouting. I just don’t care. It doesn’t matter if their scouts are better or worse, what matters is that I don’t want to see teams with 100 mill payrolls steam rolling the competition all day. Th yankees don’t need to worry about the draft because they can just buy premium talent. I’m not sure where the disconnect is here. If your argument is against revenue sharing in general, then that is a debate that can happen, but none of this stops it from happening. It just ensures that poorer teams will have to use those funds on lesser pro players because they will never be able to afford the big ticket guys. Again, how does this help baseball?

It’s not that they Can’t sign the players. They can but they will get penalized if they spend too much. Kind of like the Yankees with the luxury tax, something even as a Yankee fan I don’t have a problem with.

I don’t like this idea and I agree it doesn’t Help baseball, but it doesn’t Hurt small market teams all that much. Teh only thing it hurts them in is next year’s draft.

So basically any team that doesn’t spend at least 100M and builds through prospects and not free agency is screwed and have no chance of getting better in the next 5 years.

Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies are the only teams that get anything out of this at all and will probably gain more draft picks from the new CBA (12 million dollar rule) than anybody. In short the small market teams get less picks and the big market teams get more picks and no competition.

How did you get the “big market teams get more picks”? It clearly says that small market teams and small market teams enter a lottery where they have a shot of getting 1 of 6 additional picks after the 1st rnd. How is any big market team getting more picks than a small market team.

The small market teams fans are way off.This is going to benefit them more than the big market teams.Learn how to draft better small market teams.Picking the bo brainer player is the easy thing to do.Find some damn sleepers

I hate the new lottery system at the end of the first round. It won’t help the smaller market teams if they have all of these restrictions on how much they can spend. The only good thing about the new CBA is the potentially expanded replay. And the harsher luxury tax on teams with huge payrolls (yankees/red sox)

I love number 1,2,3 and 7 in the new agreement.Now we can finally see who can really draft the best.It has been who can spend the most cash in the draft.Finally that crap will end.These kids who say they are unsignable can get their backsides to college instead of milking ever dollar they can from teams

How many times do we see elite players slide because they tell teams they are unsignable and what happens big market teams like the yanks,Red Sox and Nats draft them and of coarse sign them.This garbage will finally end.Fans of small market teams will benefit from this

It’s all but a done deal. The players tied that and other concessions in with having the same number of clubs in each division.

The whole agreement is still based on a “memorandum of understanding” at this point. There isn’t even a signed agreement yet, but it’s a matter of putting it in writing with all the details. You won’t find a copy of the actual new CBA yet, because there isn’t one

The amateur draft was designed to benefit the teams finishing at the bottom of the league every season, so they could draft the best players. Agents and greed forced the costs to skyrocket, inflating salaries. Teams would then draft accordingly to signability potential, ignoring if the players involved were the first, second, third best players coming out of high school or college. Better players fell accordingly and were drafted by teams that would spend the money on the risk. If they want say Pittsburgh to draft the best player, don’t handicap them by putting a cap on what they can sign him for. All it does is promote teams to draft the eleventh best player first over all, because they only have so much to spend. What does that mean? Simple, many teams will ignore the top talent, which then falls to the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, etc at the bottom of the draft. You can’t force a team to draft the best player, if they know they can’t sign them for a 3M bonus, since major league contracts now don’t exist. Players will get paid 500 thousand, with a bonus of 1.5 – 3M bonus and that will be for the best players in the draft. Harper signed a major league contract. With the new CBA, he signs for the league minimum and how much of a bonus for signing rests with the team involved. If they don’t want to spend all ten rounds money in one round, he is then forced to accept the offer or go ineligible for four years.

I tend to agree. The ONLY reason the Royals are on the cusp of being competitive is because of their aggressive spending in the draft AND the International scene. Without the ability to sign top prospects (sometimes several in a draft), the Royals and other small market teams are screwed.

This has a major impact on the ability of teams to draft their way out of the bottom. Now everyone has to spend big on free agents…and guess what? A handful of teams can afford that.

First you don’t know what the slot limits will be. It is being rumored to be going up around 50%. Also every team doesn’t have the same limit. Each team’s limit is based on the number and location of their picks in the 1st 10 rounds.
2nd, It eliminates the draftees negotiating power.
3rd, Since Players are signed to minor league contracts the will make $80k not $500.

First you don’t know what the slot limits will be. It is being rumored to be going up around 50%. Also every team doesn’t have the same limit. Each team’s limit is based on the number and location of their picks in the 1st 10 rounds.
2nd, It eliminates the draftees negotiating power.
3rd, Since Players are signed to minor league contracts the will make $80k not $500.

I don’t really see anything here that is of any help to anybody but big market teams, and the players. Maybe the additional playoff spot. Did Bud just let the players write what they want and he signed off on it without reading?

Setting an overall cap for the draft is a bad idea, especially if the cost of going over it could be high draft picks. If he really wanted a fix, he should have insisted on a hard cap based on where you’re drafted, or left it as is. As a Jays fan, I don’t agree that we are a small market team, but the changes today seriously nerf our chances of of using the draft as a tool to help us win. Putting nasty penalties on offering lower-ranked free agents arbitration is also a huge blow. You think Kelly Johnson is worth top-125 players in baseball money? I don’t, not if its 12 million a year.

And with American free agents iffy about upping there family and moving to a new country (And that’s is there right as a free agent), putting limits on international free agents puts another road block in front of us.

I’m really not liking this CBA so far. Maybe there is something that they aren’t showing that could change my mind, but as I see it, this deal heavily favors the players, who have had a lot of the ways teams could hang onto them taken away, and large market teams, who I would doubt would blink at losing a 28-30th draft pick in the first round if they could snag one of the blue-chip prospects that the other teams are afraid to draft because his money demands might be more than the whole of the budget MLB has given them.

I agree with you that it is a bad idea, but you cannot say that it Helps big market teams in any way shape or form. It hurts them just as much as it hurts other. The Yankees are just as affected by the CBA in that they can’t spend a ton of money on international FA’s and over slot picks.

The one thing this hurts is the most is that baseball athletes who are talented at more than just baseball and can get a chance to play in the NFL or NBA, have a good chance at going that route.

Just because there is a spending limit on it doesn’t mean that the big market teams will get players the small market teams wanted.

I think we should wait and see how the next couple of drafts go before we already say it’s a bad idea.

I see your point about international FA’s, but I still say that bigger market teams won’t be hit as hard by the draft cap. To a team that lives and dies by the draft, if the top pick in the country wants more than you can reasonably give him and it throws off what you can do with the rest of your draft, you either have to decide to go for it now and draft him regardless, or go a safer signing route and hope the guy you picked pans out. Before, it was just an ability to pay the player. Now, it’s an ability to pay him AND be willing to pay the other price handed down by MLB.

On the other side of the coin, if a big name prospect drops in the draft because of his money demands, I personally think teams like the Mets, Yankees, Phillies, etc, would be willing to shell out the big bucks and take the penalty, either cash or a future pick or two, to be able to land the premium talent that usually doesn’t make it to them. Now, all the money in the world won’t help if you can’t draft well, but combining someone like the Yankees scouting with there willingness and ability to pay for the talent, I feel, isn’t a good thing for baseball.

To me, personally, this whole CBA looks like, from the surface look we have, to have been rushed by Bud in order for him to say “Look what I did! Labor peace!” and didn’t have the best interest of most of the teams in mind.

It’s not the big or small market teams it hurts, it’s the teams that do the early drafting in the rounds. While most of them are small market teams, there still will be many big market teams drafting (Astros, Cubs).

As I mentioned in another post, I think it will only hurt the small market teams in the following draft. You have to figure scouts and owners know when a great draft, a good draft and a medicore draft is coming up. So they should know when to spend above their limit and get penalized for it, and when to spend the right amount.

Big name prospects don’t have to drop I don’t think. I think they can still get drafted, but it’s the teams decision if they want to draft him, sign him, and pay the tax and lose a draft pick or 2 the next year.

Do I think this is a bad thing? The answer is yes. But I don’t think the
penalties are as harsh as they are being made out to be.

It’s not the big or small market teams it hurts, it’s the teams that do the early drafting in the rounds. While most of them are small market teams, there still will be many big market teams drafting (Astros, Cubs).

As I mentioned in another post, I think it will only hurt the small market teams in the following draft. You have to figure scouts and owners know when a great draft, a good draft and a medicore draft is coming up. So they should know when to spend above their limit and get penalized for it, and when to spend the right amount.

Big name prospects don’t have to drop I don’t think. I think they can still get drafted, but it’s the teams decision if they want to draft him, sign him, and pay the tax and lose a draft pick or 2 the next year.

Do I think this is a bad thing? The answer is yes. But I don’t think the
penalties are as harsh as they are being made out to be.

i hate that the rules change in the middle of the game. Type A issues when players have been already signed and changed teams!!! Pathetic. I hate that there will be interleague play all year long. ok for a couple series a year but all season is ridiculous. i like the wild card and 2 is fine but change for changes sake is terrible!!!

Obtaining International players is part of the game. The Rangers have a strong Dominican and Venezuelan base. Why should teams like us be penalized for spending Internationally instead of spending big on HS players who try to get more than money than they’re worth for what they’ve proven so far.
It’s irrelevant now anyway, because many of the top players coming out of the DR , Cuba, and Venezuela are commanding alot more money. I figure the Rangers will slow down regardless.
This past year we aquired Leonys Martin (Cuba) and Nomar Mazara (DR). Both were payed handsomely…but it looks like nothing close to what Yeonis Cespedes is going to get.

Ok i understand that but the fact is they have obtained this talent because of spending so much.Now with these new rules we will see he gets the most bang for their buck.I do think certain teams went overboard with the international signings

If you’re going to cap what people can spend internationally why don’t they cap all of baseball?
The Rangers spending big internationally is no different than them, the Yankees, the Sox, the Phillies, etc..spending big here! There is ZERO difference!

You will never see a cap on the major league side.The drafts is peanut money compared to major league payrolls.I just wanna know why are you upset about this.It evens the playing field.You have to stop thinking like a Rangers fan and start thinking like a Major League baseball fan

How does it even the playing field? Every other team has the freedom to go scout in the DR just as we do. They can go after these guys too. They’re cheaper than the free agents here, if you’re willing to take the risk on them.